An inkjet printing system may include a printhead, an ink supply which supplies liquid ink to the printhead, and an electronic controller which controls the printhead. The printhead ejects drops of ink through a plurality of nozzles or orifices and toward a print medium, such as a sheet of paper, so as to print onto the print medium. Typically, the orifices are arranged in one or more columns or arrays such that properly sequenced ejection of ink from the orifices causes characters or other images to be printed upon the print medium as the printhead and the print medium are moved relative to each other.
The printhead, often referred to as a printhead die, typically includes one or more ink feed slots which route different colors or types of ink to fluid ejection chambers communicated with the nozzles or orifices of the printhead die. Due to market forces and continuing technological improvements, the length of the printhead die (i.e., print swath) has been increasing while the spacing or width between the ink feed slots (i.e., slot pitch) has been decreasing. This increase in print swath and decrease in slot pitch, although increasing a number of nozzles or resolution of the printhead die, may also increase the potential fragility of the printhead die.
For these and other reasons, there is a need for the present invention.